The Handkerchief
by Lady ot Rings
Summary: Susan must learn to move on from something wonderful and continue living her life. Movie and Bookverse, implied Susan/Caspian. Rated for angst. Spoilers for PC movie, VotDT book, and TLB book.


**Disclaimer: **I am not CS Lewis or a descendant, I am not an employee at Disney, I am a poor college student amusing herself.

**A/N: **Half of the inspiration for this fic came from a blog I found on LiveJournal, which you can find a link to on my journal, dancingintime.

Susan absent-mindedly fingered her linen handkerchief, her initials delicately stitched with a light purple thread, S P. Outside of her room, she watched a couple birds dance with each other in the air, flirting mercilessly and yet being rejected time after time. And yet, those fat robins kept at it, their chirping becoming more dramatic as the dance increased in intensity. As soon as Susan saw them finally accept each other, she looked away and ignored the noises.

She focused on her handkerchief and wondered if she should even mention her idea to Lucy. With the way time wound on, what promises could the younger girl keep if Susan went along with her plan? For all she knew, the progression from the fall to spring in England could equal another millennia over…there. She couldn't even name the place, not after her second and last adventure in that world. It didn't seem fair to her that once she even began to feel as if she belonged in either place, some cosmic force ripped her out of the reality and dropped her in an older one. And after everything the lion did for her…

Time was a cruel thing, Susan decided. After waiting so long to go back to the fantasy, she finally found someone she'd gladly be with, someone she believed she could trust well enough in order to strip away her façade of a strong, practical young woman. And then after so short an experience, they had to part forever. Why did she have to wait so long for a taste of happiness and then suddenly stop herself from devouring it?

She wondered how he dealt with the separation, if, when they both gazed into a mirror, he saw a glimpse of her eyes. She often thought she heard his wonderful voice call her name as she lay sleeping, and when she awoke, she would realize that the Spanish-like accent was all in her head and she was back in England, back at school.

Those memories settled the matter. Susan needed Lucy's help. A few months had already passed and after the last wait, Susan wasn't sure if Lucy and Edmund would disappear sooner or later this time. One evening, while Susan waited anxiously in her room, Lucy quietly slipped in, looking worried.

"You wanted to see me?"

Susan stopped tapping her foot and smiled a little bit for Lucy. She patted a spot beside her on the bed and Lucy crawled to the spot, curling her legs underneath her. "I…I'm not sure how to say this, Lu…"

"Then just say it." Susan looked at her sister and sighed. She was right. Of course the girl was right; she was the most faithful out of the four children and always seemed to know what to say.

Susan sighed again and began, "Lucy, I don't know when he…when Aslan will call you back, but…just in case," she handed the handkerchief to Lucy, "could you give this to him? Assuming the time differences line up this time, of course."

Lucy looked confused. "You want me to give this to Aslan?" She raised the linen square a little bit to Susan.

"Not him." Susan stood up and strode to the window, leaning on the sill but not really seeing anything outside. "If you see…Caspian again, give him that and tell him…"

Tell him what? What could she possibly say that would express all of her feelings? She did not love Caspian; there simply wasn't enough time for a fruitful relationship to have been made. She missed him, was all. Yes, that was it. She liked having someone see her separately as a person instead of just another Pevensie. She didn't want to blend into the background of history as some queen who ruled for some amount of time and did some things. She didn't want to be an anecdote in a history book for children to completely ignore while studying. What Susan wanted was –

"Tell him to remember me."

About a month later, in the summer, while Susan traveled to America with her parents, Lucy returned to Narnia and met up with Caspian aboard the Dawn Treader. She took the handkerchief and message with her, but throughout the long adventure, she never found the right time to fulfill Susan's wish. And when she thought maybe she had found the best moment, Lucy realized it was already too late.

When Susan returned to England, she found Lucy in her room at home, holding the handkerchief.

"Lucy, what happened?" Susan tried to sound gentle and unhurt, but Lucy heard the tremor of disappointment in her voice. She looked at her sister and told of her latest experience in the magical world.

"Caspian was there this time, though a few years older. And I wanted to tell him what you said, I really did, but the timing was off. And –"

"And what?" Susan breathed heavily, trying not to let her eyes well up. This was her fear, she was forgotten in Narnia and even her closest friend and sibling couldn't help her when she desperately needed it. She imagined Lucy playing in Narnia instead of keeping her word and she hated every thought. "You couldn't tell one person a single sentence? You couldn't help me feel better about growing up? I will never be able to be a kid again, Lucy, and all you can say is that the timing was off?" She turned around sharply, unable to look at her sister anymore, one arm wrapped around her torso and the other held in front of her face, her fingers digging trenches in her hair..

"I'm sorry, Su." Susan closed her eyes, willing the tears to stop. She couldn't cry, she wouldn't cry. She had to get a hold of herself. The last time she visited Narnia, everyone knew exactly who she was and who she had been. She was only overreacting. She took a deep breath and lifted her face upward, at the same time as she shifted her hands to her hips.

"It's okay, Lucy. It's been a hard year getting reacquainted with civilian life again." She slowly turned to face Lucy again and put on a smile. "Now, you were saying?"

Lucy didn't smile back and Susan suspected that she knew more than she let on most of the time. In fact, she knew Lucy knew more than anyone expected and that worried her at this moment. "Caspian…met someone."

Susan took an involuntary sharp breath and tried to mask it by quickly and clumsily crossing her arms across her chest. She looked down and bit her lip, to keep it from trembling. She wanted to cry. She wanted to run outside at that moment and fall on her knees screaming. She wanted to pound her hands into a muddy water puddle and splash the refuse all over herself. She wanted to pull at her hair and maybe, just maybe, feel something real in this world.

Lucy continued, with a hushed voice, "I know you liked him, but he had to move on, that's all. I think he remembered you, though. I noticed he would look just beyond my shoulder as if you would appear. But we all knew you wouldn't. So he grew up."

Susan didn't blink as Lucy walked past her and out of the room. She felt a tear roll down part of her cheek and splash on her bare arm. And then the dam broke open and Susan ran to her bed and collapsed on it, shaking with every tearful heave.

As the Pevensie children grew into young adults, Peter, Edmund, and Lucy noticed how Susan distanced herself from the rest of them. If the others shared stories of Narnia, she would sit in a chair on the other side of the room and snort at their so-called "silliness" and continue practicing her embroidery. She never joined the rest of her siblings in games or activities she considered childish and gathered more interest in adult responsibilities than the wonders of the world only children or those young at heart could still find beautiful.

While Caspian grew up responsibly in Narnia, Susan grew up superficially in England.

As the summer of 1949 came to a shuddering halt, accompanied by the sounds of screeching steel and screaming souls, Susan felt truly alone for the first time in her put on adult life. Her family was gone, killed in a rail accident, and she drifted behind, unknowingly left out of the true Narnia while the old one burned and withered away.

She was alone, and realized how lonely life truly was without the love of friends and family. Magazines and lipstick offered no respite from the tragedy. She missed the magic of Narnia that her siblings brought into a room after a new adventure or a moment of storytelling, despite how she chided them for constantly thinking about such a fantasy. She missed experiencing that same feeling of finding Narnia again. She missed feeling the Narnian air wrap around her body, enveloping her in love.

Susan Pevensie missed…life.

The day after the news of her family's deaths, she traveled to the closest riverbank that overlooked the Thames. Sitting on the incline toward the rushing water, Susan held the handkerchief one last time. It had survived well all those years, although the white linen sported a few brown stains that appeared mysteriously. Susan's initials had to be fixed once after she snagged the threads on a needle as she sewed, her family playing a game in the living room, and the thread color no longer matched; the original had faded and the replacement thread was a striking deep royal purple. But the proud, curling letters, S P, still proclaimed that this handkerchief belonged to Susan Pevensie, a Daughter of Eve and High Queen of Narnia.

Taking a final look at the square, she balled it up in her fist and went as far down on the embankment as she could without falling into the mighty river. She squeezed the linen in her hand and, with all the energy in her lithe body, threw it as hard as she could into the Thames. She watched as it soared on the wind for a moment, like a seagull coasting on the wind, and then it fell, and was swallowed by the current.

She hoped that if she never saw Narnia again, at least the land would receive a memento of herself.


End file.
